As Spring and Winter Embrace
by chakramrain
Summary: Anna is spring and Elsa is winter. Anna is where the wild mushrooms grow through roots to split the bark of young oaks, where the bluebirds sing and where brooks babble, bubbling with mirth. Elsa is subtle, carving intricate patterns into snowflakes and smoothing lakes into rinks, skies into white. They meet, embracing and leaving, backs to one door for the time afterward.


Anna is spring and Elsa is winter. Anna is where the wild mushrooms grow through roots and split the bark of young oaks, where the bluebirds sing and where the brooks babble, bubbling with mirth. Elsa is subtle, carving intricate patterns into every snowflake and smoothing lakes into rinks and skies into white. They meet for a short time, embracing and leaving, backs to one door for the time afterward; it's an annual affair that Anna sees Elsa anymore, watches her descend the steps and have a few mouthfuls of dinner before slinking back into icy shadows, as if the light hurts her physically. It seems that way.

"Elsa, do you want to build a snowman?" Anna asks, rapping on the door.

The answers vary from 'go away, Anna' to the more docile 'maybe later'. 'Later' never arrives, Anna has come to learn, but she asks once a month anyway, at the very least. In the spare time after receiving affirmations of her sister being well and alive, Anna paints with greens and yellows, oranges and bright reds. Behind the door Elsa has a palette of shallow blues, wisps of silver and light greys in her blonde, almost albino landscape. She huddles into a corner once more and holds herself captive.

This time Elsa says 'yes'.

"Alright, then," Anna turns, almost leaving.

Of course, reality smacks her like cold in the face and she turns sharply back, pressing her entire body to the door once more.

"Yes?" she asks, hopeful.

"Yes," Elsa replies, voice muffled by the door between the sisters, "I do. But I'd rather not. It wouldn't be good."

"What's not to love about snowmen? They like warm hugs," Anna says, enthusiastic and unaccustomed to speaking more than seven words to Elsa.

"I know," Elsa says, chuckling to herself, but her laugh is not full or fleshed out by joy.

Then all is quiet and Anna abandons plans to talk to the pictures on the walls and to ride their bike down the banisters, back curving into the door's solid, unforgivable length. She slides downwards after an hour, bum touching the wooden boards beneath, and sighs. _To have such intense love for a stranger_, Anna thinks in the empty space of her mind, _for someone I am not to know, not to touch, painful, and the wait to know her or even see her face again, worse._

It's two in the morning when Elsa hears noise outside her door, scurrying and worried murmurs. The flurry by the maids and butler wakes Else from her dormant state. Anna isn't waking. Anna is burning up. Anna needs to be put in bed this instant.

Elsa rips the door from its hinges, cracking bolts and knobs with freezing poles of ice. The crowd of servants disperses immediately, leaving the queen a wide berth but not giving up the piece of meat on the floor. Elsa kneels, touching hot skin and a feverish body. She almost leaves Anna there for fear of maiming the body again and freezing a living entity to its early death. But a surge of warmth thaws the eternal winter in her chest and she takes her arms under her younger sister and lifts, dragging the girl into her room and sealing the entrance again, temporarily keeping the door in place.

"Oh, Anna," Elsa mumbles, "why do you do such foolish things?"

The heated body is wrapped in a drizzle of snow, cooling the sister upon her lap. Elsa places Anna onto the bed she hardly ever sleeps in anymore and cups her bare feet, willing the heat to escape the weak girl. Anna wakes with a jolt, arms wrestling Elsa into the ground.

"Is this how you wake?" Elsa snickers, "no wonder the suitors run."

"Elsa!" Anna swivels about, straddling a pleased older sister, watching the winter scene unfold beautifully in a chamber of white, "what is this?"

The accused quickly moves away, leaving Anna stranded on the floor, folding her arms into herself and turning away, almost shaping the words that would tell Anna to leave and never return with her lips. But she restrains herself and shakes her head repeatedly.

"Is this why you've been hiding?"

"Anna, you don't understand. I have a hair's breadth of control over this ice."

"It's wonderful!" Anna continues, unfazed.

"No, Anna, it's ugly. It's harmful and harsh and unlovable. It almost cost me your life once. Go now. Never speak of this. Never speak to me," Elsa hurries to pull the door apart again, beckoning for Anna to leave.

The younger sister attempts to toddle towards the elder, but her ailing body weakens and she stumbles backwards, stray icicle almost impaling her arm. Elsa streaks forth, howling winds screaming throughout the hallways behind her, and takes her sister back into her arms.

"Please, Elsa, let's build a snowman."

"You ask for such unfeasible things, such meaningless things, Anna."

Anna almost shudders with the heat and cold meeting, clashing, being repelled and confronting each other again, all within the confines of her human body. The queen watches with a sad, despondent expression, leaving the cage of her room to help Anna find rest where she would not be a hindrance.

"Elsa, don't leave me. I want to build a snowman."

"I know, Anna."

Elsa moves swiftly, under the watchful eyes of the guard standing by at night, disappearing into Anna's room and locking the door behind her. She cannot remember the last time she did something as regular, as mundane or as human as shutting a door softly and clicking its lock into place. Once Anna is set down, Elsa steps back to leave, clearly unable to go.

"Please, Elsa, stay."

Elsa trembles with this request.

"Please, Elsa."

Eyes shut tight, a strong, independent woman quivering at the first human words she hears in a decade.

"Please."

Someone gives in, and spring and winter meet for this transient moment, loving in the warmest of hugs and the most intimate of kisses and Elsa prays, prays these few hours will last her another year.


End file.
